OLEOMARGARINE. 345 



This product, as I have said, also enters into and is part of the com- 

 position of oleomargarine, or butterine; and I want to say that the man 

 who tirst produced oleomargarine was, in my opinion, a benefactor to 

 the race. The ingredient of cotton oil that enters largely into the 

 manufacture of oleomargarine, butterine, or butter substitute, as is 

 shown, is a pure and wholesome vegetable oil, free from any possibility 

 of disease. The people of other countries have gone into this subject 

 more fully than our own. 



In Great Britain I think the question of pure food has been given 

 more attention than perhaps in any civilized nation in the world; and 

 anything that is pure and good and wholesome and healthful for human 

 diet is welcomed there by the people ot the country anything in the 

 food product line which will lessen the cost of living to the mass of 

 people. The colonies of Great Britain have been very large producers 

 of butter, notably Australia and New Zealand. I think they have 

 subsidized boats with refrigerating apparatus in order to bring that 

 product to Great Britain for the purpose of lessening the cost of that 

 food to its working people. 



The butter countries of the Continent, especially Holland, produce 

 more " margarine," as they call it, than they used to produce of butter. 

 The organization of that product or article is about the same as that 

 produced in this country. That produced in those countries is exported 

 and sold in all the large manufacturing towns of Great Britain by the 

 side of butter. If they are able to frame a law which will protect the 

 butter manufacturer there, why can not we 1 ? If there is anything 

 deleterious in it, the scientific men of that country would certainly find 

 it out. I think they have not more stringent laws than we have, 

 although they have given more attention to the subject; and the prod- 

 uct is sold openly for what it is, of course margarine. And by its 

 means the mass of people are able to obtain a food product that is at 

 once as healthful and good and wholesome as butter itself. 



It seems to me that the claim which has been made here that a law 

 can riot be framed which will protect the interests of the butter maker 

 and of the maker of the butter substitute can not be well founded. I 

 do not think that in any country of the world is the Government as 

 zealous of the health of its people as that of Great Britain. In the 

 shops in all the manufacturing towns and the other large towns of that 

 country where butter and kindred products are sold there are dis- 

 played side by side for sale butter and what they there term u mar- 

 garine." In the countries in which it is manufactured it is used in the 

 same way. Its manufacture has become a great industry; and that 

 industry is being developed and fostered. When I was in Rotterdam 

 last spring I visited a very large " rnargarin-fabrick," as it is called, 

 and the proprietor took especial pains to show me a tablet in marble 

 that had just been placed there in commemoration of a visit of Queen 

 Wilhelmina, of Holland, showing that it has the approval not only of 

 the mass of the people, but of the Government. Its manufacturer 

 contributes very largely to the work of the people there, and the 

 export business is a great source of income. 



We want to protest against the passage of such a bill as is before 

 your committee as being hurtful to our interests at large, and espe- 

 cially hurtful to those mills in which I and my friends are directly 

 interested. They are located in Texas, where there is produced a 

 quality of oil that averages better than that made in the other Southern 

 States. And while in the aggregate the total production of oil used in 

 this particular line may seem small, to us it is very large. 



